Names, Jokes, and the Fourth Wall
by Badmitton
Summary: Ryuko and Satsuki meet at the park, or, I wrote one fic with sister fluff in it and now I can't stop.


They exchanged drinks in the park. That's how it always went. Ryuko would bring a thermos of tea, Satsuki would bring a lidded plastic cup of lemonade with a little mint in it.

Satsuki liked the park and Ryuko felt rather blasé about the whole thing, so that's where they met.

"I missed you," Satsuki said as Ryuko hugged her a little too hard and a little too long. The autumn breeze crept through their hair as they sat down on a bench.

"Me too, sis. Where's Zac?" Ryuko asked, looking around as she tucked a piece of flyaway hair behind her ear "I know you don't go anywhere without him." Satsuki frowned, her eyebrows telling of impending doom.

"His name is Zacchaeus. He won't answer to anything else."

"What's that matter? He won't answer to anyone but you, anyway. Don't forget that time I dog-sat for you. Never again." Satsuki relaxed her eyebrows and put her lips together in a low whistle before taking a sip of her tea. Ryuko grinned as she caught sight of the Malamute loping sloppily towards them, colorful leaves stuck in his fur. "Hey buddy! Who's a good puppy, huh? How's my Zac?" The dog stopped just out of her reach and stared disdainfully at Ryuko before huffing and going to sit at Satsuki's feet.

Ryuko frowned.

"What a stuck-up! You two are so alike it's scary!" Satsuki chuckled and screwed the cap back onto the thermos, reaching down to fondle her dog's ears. She remembered with great fondness the day she had received him as a gift, sitting in bed at three in the morning with a great big ball of black and white fur squirming on her lap as tears ran down her cheeks. She smiled and nudged her sister's side with her elbow.

"You got him because you thought his kiss-marks looked like my eyebrows." Satsuki protectively smoothed her eyebrows with her fingertips. "This is nothing if not divine retribution." Ryuko responded by sticking her hand into the back of Satsuki's neck, ruffling her short hair mercilessly before flopping on the ground to do the same to Zacchaeus. They both responded with visible annoyance, the dog going so far as to snap his teeth. Ryuko yelped and climbed back onto the bench, clutching desperately onto her sister's arm.

"Save me from your demon-animal!" She cried, grinning as she pushed her face into Satsuki's shoulder. She enjoyed the feeling of Satsuki's chuckle rippling through her body, the sound filling her with a warm glow. Reluctantly, she sat up as she felt Satsuki getting fidgety at the prolonged touch.

_Take it easy, Ryuko_, she chided herself.

To hide her steadily rising blush, she resumed conversation.

"Why'd you name him that anyway? It's such a weird name. Very Aerith and Bob kinda thing." She paused and took a long drag from the straw in her lemonade.

"Zacchaeus means 'purity.'"

Ryuko spit her lemonade so forcefully back into the cup that the drink would have bubbled over if there hadn't been a lid. Aghast, she stared sidelong at her sister, who had tucked her chin into her scarf with a small smile.

"Damn, Satsuki! You have the worst sense of humor of anyone I've ever met!" Satsuki continued to smile, her mouth hidden in the blue wool, rubbing her lips softly against the fabric. "Like that thing you said at your graduation... 'I'd like to thank my mother for letting me live to see this day.' and everyone laughed like you just had some super-strict mom or something. You laughed!"

"Well, in my defense, she was strict, and she did let me live." Satsuki absently pushed up the leather band of her watch so she could smooth out the wrinkles of skin around the thick white scar. Sighing, she put her head back and wrapped her arm around her sister, staring up at the sky, white-grey with shifting clouds.

Ryuko sighed with her but looked down, her breath misting around her collar. The grass was brown and prickly, but not unpleasant to look at against the backdrop of the splashes of orange and purple of the trees. Ryuko, however, wasn't much for scenery. All she could do was feel Satsuki's arm around her and her own heartbeat in the lining of her stomach.

"We laugh at things only when we're not afraid of them." Satsuki began, softly, after a stretch of silence. Zacchaeus huffed and put his nose onto his master's lap, and Satsuki automatically began to stroke his head. Ryuko leaned forward to give the dog an envious glare, and he glared smugly back.

_I hate his stupid eyebrows_, she thought.

"I'm not afraid anymore, Ryuko."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she remained silent, sipping at her lemonade. Sensing her discomfort, Satsuki spoke again. "What did you say? 'Aerith and Bob'?" Ryuko spit out her straw, bobbing her head.

"Mm. Yeah. That's when, like, writers of fanfiction just stick in these random names for original characters that aren't in keeping with the tone of the show at all. Like if someone made up a character for _Naruto_ and named him Fred." Satsuki still looked confused, so Ryuko pointed to herself. "Look. Ryuko." She pointed to her sister. "Satsuki." Then to the dog. "Zac. It doesn't make sense." Satsuki arched an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Are you saying my dog is a character in a bad fanfiction?"

"Could happen!"

"That would mean that we're characters in bad fanfiction, too."

"Hey, who knows? Really weird shit has happened to us."

Satsuki hummed, pleased with the thought experiment. She wasn't sure she liked the idea, exactly, but it was an amusing one, at least.

"I bet they would ship us." Ryuko blurted out and immediately regretted it, a blush tearing from her stomach to her scalp.

"'Ship'?"

"It's uh..." too flustered to come up with a plausible lie. Ryuko told the truth. "It's when people want them to... uh... be a couple and shit."

"Oh?" Satsuki turned and grabbed Ryuko by her burning ears and pressed their foreheads together. "So they would just love it if we kissed, hm?" Ryuko stared, frozen, as Satsuki's eyes lidded and she inched a little closer. For the tiniest of seconds, their lips pressed together, and stars exploded behind Ryuko's eyes as she grabbed the back of the bench for support, her lemonade falling with a sick slosh to the ground.

Then it was over, and Satsuki flicked Ryuko's nose with a grin before rising and loping away, her Christmas dog at her heels. Breathless, Ryuko followed her.

"We can't disappoint the fans, can we?" Satsuki called back, turning around to run backwards and throwing a stick for Zac. Ryuko shook her head, a laugh cracking out of her mouth even as her heart pounded furiously and her lips tingled.

_Stupid fans._


End file.
